The COPI complex coats the surface of vesicles travelling within the Golgi
and recycling back to the ER. COPI-coated vesicles can be generated from
purified Golgi membranes and analysed in vitro, and this approach is providing
significant insight into their biogenesis. In a Commentary on
p. 3235, Walter Nickel, Britta
Brügger and Felix Wieland discuss the COPI machinery and its
assembly/disassembly in the context of this work. The COPI coat comprises a
heptameric coatomer protein and the small GTPase ARF1. In vitro studies
suggest that GDP-bound ARF1 is recruited to the Golgi membrane by a member of
the p24 family termed p23. The latter dissociates from ARF1 upon GTP/GDP
exchange and becomes able to bind to coatamer — perhaps through
rearrangement of p23 oligomers. Nickel et al. speculate that interactions
between coatomer and p23/p24 oligomers drive the polymerization of COPI that
accompanies vesicle formation, proposing a model for vesicle formation in
which p23, p24, ARF-GTP and coatamer constitute the minimal machinery
necessary.

Andreas Villunger and colleagues discuss the biology of the PIDDosome multiprotein complex and recent advances that link PIDDosome-dependent CASP2 activation to p53 activation in response to extra centrosomes.

Centrosomes and cilia are essential structures for many functions in development and disease. Sascha Werner, Ana Pimenta-Marques and Mónica Bettencourt-Dias review how their structure and functions are maintained.

Marian Blanca Ramírez from the CSIC in Spain has been studying the effects of LRRK2, a protein associated with Parkinson’s disease, on cell motility. A Travelling Fellowship from Journal of Cell Science allowed her to spend time in Prof Maddy Parson’s lab at King’s College London, learning new cell migration assays and analysing fibroblasts cultured from individuals with Parkinson’s. Read more on her story here.

Where could your research take you? The deadline to apply for the current round of Travelling Fellowships is 30 Nov 2017. Apply now!